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Exercise training in heart failure patients: effects on skeletal muscle abnormalities and sympathetic nervous activity—a literature review

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Abstract

Patients suffering from heart failure exhibit fatigue resulting in reduced exercise tolerance and thus, decreased functional capacity and quality of life. Evidence supporting that cardiac function is poorly correlated with the exercise capacity, led to investigations into peripheral abnormalities, such as impaired function and oxidative capacity of the skeletal muscle, and increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Although in the past exercise training was discouraged, today it is recognized that has unique beneficial effects on the peripheral alterations that are seen in this clinical population, as well as, it is a safe therapeutic intervention for patients with heart failure. There is ample evidence demonstrating that improvements in muscle metabolism and sympathetic nervous activity, which are closely connected with exercise capacity, lead to lower rates of hospitalization and improvements in quality of life. Thus, in fact, exercise training is considered an integral, non-pharmacological, component in heart failure management, contributing to attenuate systemic effects and to ameliorate, or even reverse, skeletal myopathy.

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  1. Department of Physiotherapy, AKMI Metropolitan College, 74 Sorou str, 15125, Marousi, Athens, Greece

    Fotios Iliopoulos & Nicolas Mazis

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Iliopoulos, F., Mazis, N. Exercise training in heart failure patients: effects on skeletal muscle abnormalities and sympathetic nervous activity—a literature review. Sport Sci Health 14, 217–226 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-018-0442-5

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